5 Romance Grammar

Franco   Tue May 29, 2007 8:17 am GMT
He posted all to emphasise his point. Some one made wisecrack that French has many Anglicisms, and so he dwarfed that list and put the poster to Shame!
Guest   Tue May 29, 2007 8:22 am GMT
He didn't get his point across since no one bothered to read it. It was just a big unreadable mess.

Anyone could post a list of proper Latin words to correct all that French vocabulary.
Franco   Tue May 29, 2007 8:25 am GMT
Thanks for your opinion, but I must give you 0/100. Better luck next time!

LOL, just kidding.
Guest   Tue May 29, 2007 5:11 pm GMT
<Anyone could post a list of proper Latin words to correct all that French vocabulary.>

What are you talking about, dumbass? English borrowed most of those words DIRECTLY from French.

If you speak English, and you learn French, your English vocabulary will expand more than if you chose to learn any other language, save maybe Greek or Latin.
Guest   Tue May 29, 2007 5:35 pm GMT
" French grammar is almost identical to the English one: "

!!! LOL !!!
this is what some envious English-speaking want to believe.
Rosario C. Gingras   Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:00 pm GMT
This is a rather fatuous thread. Obviously none of the English-speakers have bothered to learn French. To claim that "French grammar is almost identical to the English one" is a rank, naive statement. Just what role does
gender play in English as compared to French? English has two tenses forms (present and past). French has several tense forms and the subjunctive is still alive in Paris. Just because French and English share a lot of vocabulary due to borrowing does not make it easier for an English-speaker to learn French. To take another example, Spanish and Portuguese must share about 95% vocabulary and have very similar grammars. But few Spanish-speakers ever master Portuguese (they just speak Spanish with a few phonological adjustments). As a Spanish-speaker, I was amazed the first time I went to Portugal. I was unable to understand any radio or television programs. It is very difficult to understand Portuguese as it is spoken in Lisbon. Of course, it is easy to read Portuguese because of the shared vocabulary, but the phonological differences (although relatively minor) result in incomprehension. It should be noted that I have two degrees in Romance linguistics, but that does not make it easy to understand spoken Portuguese. I have an easier time understanding Italian. Italian has a rather direct correlation between sound and writing. This makes it far easier to learn than say French. French is written one way but is pronounced in rather unpredicatable ways (just as English is). French pronunciation is rather difficult for English-speakers. French orthography is almost as difficult. Just because two languages share a lot of vocabulary does not make it necessarily easier to learn. Grammars are never simple. There is a general confusion between syntax and morphology. Papiamentu is a language spoken in the Dutch Antilles which is a development from Spanish and Portuguese. The vocabulary is very similar and the morphology is quite simple (verbs and nouns do not change since there is very little suffixation in the language). Yet, the grammar is quite complicated and very different from Spanish. There is a great difference between "just getting along with simple language" and speaking another language. Spanish and Italian are easy to learn a few phrases in (at least for English speakers). In addition, Spanish- and Italian-speakers do not have the attitude problems that French-speakers have toward English-speakers. I speak rather fluent French, but since I learned French as an adult I have an accent. It is amazing how often Frenchmen will switch to broken English in speaking with me. They very often simply will not tolerate any accent in French. So, if the questions is learning a few traveler's phrases in another language (assuming the first language is English), try Spanish or Italian. Morphologically, these languages are more complex than English or French, but the grammars are complex enough to give anyone trying learn one of these languages lifelong problems.
Guest   Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:35 pm GMT
" Just because French and English share a lot of vocabulary "


English share a lot of vocabulary (or she should better say "english likes to use a lot of french or french-derived words instead of the original English ones")

The inverse is not true. French does'nt share any vocabulary with English.
Guest   Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:58 pm GMT
>>Spanish and Italian are easy to learn a few phrases in (at least for English speakers). In addition, Spanish- and Italian-speakers do not have the attitude problems that French-speakers have toward English-speakers. I speak rather fluent French, but since I learned French as an adult I have an accent. It is amazing how often Frenchmen will switch to broken English in speaking with me. They very often simply will not tolerate any accent in French. So, if the questions is learning a few traveler's phrases in another language (assuming the first language is English), try Spanish or Italian. Morphologically, these languages are more complex than English or French, but the grammars are complex enough to give anyone trying learn one of these languages lifelong problems.<<

Anyone can learn a few phrases in a language. And additudes be damned, none of that is going to help anyone become better in any language. The point remains that English has more in common with French than Spanish or Italian. The Hispanic Fanatics just want to try to convince people to learn their shitty language.
guest   Mon Jun 11, 2007 1:50 am GMT
french is hard for it's pronunciation and spelling jsut like enlish but the grammar stuff is easier then spanish, spanish is easy because of it's pronunciation and spelling but when it gets to grammat stuff it really becomes a stone in your ass, spanish has far more irregular verbs, has more use of verb tenses etc
Guest   Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:09 am GMT
What is it with you people ,there are far more ressemblences between English and Spanish than English and French. Some people talk like French and English are sister tongues, where they have absolutely nothing in comun ,except for some few borrowings present in all major languages.
Jean   Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:58 am GMT
French and English are sister languages with similar roots, Germanic and Latin, mainly. One can think of French as English with the words pronounced and spelled differently. The two languages follow the same word order, with a few exceptions such as "the red book" in French would have the word for red after the word for book, a Latin characteristic.
Ethnically, French and English come from almost the same peoples: the English from the Anglo-Saxons, the French from the Franks. Both are decendants of those germanic peoples, both were celts with a little roman influence. France is definitly a Northern European country wich lies along it alter ego England.
Guest   Mon Jun 11, 2007 12:37 pm GMT
Jean,you're so amusing. Judging by the same patterns ,we come up with German and Italian being sisters too,as well as Spanish and Dutch, Danish and Portuguese,etc.One big happy family.
Same word order??? They are the same in many European languages,which in fact are very different.
English and French have very few things in common,e.g verb tenses are formed completely different,English is much more of an analytic language than French,also French is much more inflected than English,etc.
Not to mention the fact that both are mutually inteligible at a 5-10% rate,and many Englishmen find French one of the most difficult languages to learn...

So you may want to rethink your arguments
Guest   Mon Jun 11, 2007 12:48 pm GMT
French and English are sister languages with similar roots, Germanic and Latin, mainly. One can think of French as English with the words pronounced and spelled differently. The two languages follow the same word order, with a few exceptions such as "the red book" in French would have the word for red after the word for book, a Latin characteristic.
Ethnically, French and English come from almost the same peoples: the English from the Anglo-Saxons, the French from the Franks. Both are decendants of those germanic peoples, both were celts with a little roman influence. France is definitly a Northern European country wich lies along it alter ego England.


Have you already check a (VERY) good centre for alcholic and drug addicted??
You have written all the EXACT contrary of the truth, very compliments!!!!
Guest   Mon Jun 11, 2007 5:03 pm GMT
I speak rather fluent French, but since I learned French as an adult I have an accent. It is amazing how often Frenchmen will switch to broken English in speaking with me. They very often simply will not tolerate any accent in French.


They are right stupid English pig, English speakers are not able to say a word in foreign languages without ruin it
Clovis   Mon Jun 11, 2007 5:15 pm GMT
C'est quoi cet acharnement à absoluement vouloir décréter que les français sont plus germaniques que latins et que les britanniques sont plus latins que germaniques ?????

Jean, I'm sure that you're English ! You should learn Italian or Spanish and after you'll tell me if French and english are "sister languages" !
French is a lot more closer with Spanih or Italian (a bit more with Italian) than with English...I'm sorry but you will never change that.

Il faut être ignorant pour raconter de telles absurdités !! Did you travel in French tows as Paris, Toulouse, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes or Nancy ? Do you really know French people ? I'm not sure...

French people have MANY origins, as Italian poeple, as Spanih people, as English people ! But it's ONLY a physical caracteristic ! Culturally France is more like Portugal, Italy, Spain...!

Il est plus facile de croire ce qui nous arrange...mais certains ici ont des poutres dans les yeux...et dans la tête !